Fifteen minutes of fame

Andy Warhol said in 1968, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." I'm not certain that I obtained world notoriety. But I may have gain a bit of regional fame in the Sacramento Bee this morning.

Bee writer Cathy Locke interviewed Keith Berry, myself and the crew at the engine house of the El Dorado Western Railway on Wednesday. We enjoyed the opportunity to tell the California capital region about the recently approved El Dorado County Historical Railroad Park in the town of El Dorado.

Enthusiasts hope El Dorado rail park is just around the bend

By Cathy Locke, Sacramento Bee writer
Published: Friday, Sep. 11, 2009, Page 3B

El Dorado Western Railway Foundation volunteer Steve Karoly talks about the Shay No. 4 behind him. It is the last of the locomotives from the California Door Company's logging railroad. Bought in 1907, the engine was retired in 1952 after years of hauling logs for the Diamond and Caldor Railway. (Sacramento Bee photograph by Anne Chadwick Williams.)

An old locomotive, screened by a chain-link fence and a row of trees, is easy to miss at the El Dorado County Historical Museum in Placerville.

But volunteers have labored for years in the storage yard to restore vestiges of an industry and an era nearly as important to the county as the Gold Rush. By next spring, their handiwork may be on view in the El Dorado County Historical Railroad Park.

The park, to be developed within a former Southern Pacific Railroad right of way in the town of El Dorado, will spotlight the county's logging railroads. [Continue reading]

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